Beyond Baghdad

My New Digs

So here are some pics of the new place.  It's a very convenient location between my office and the chow hall, so I can run quick errands (laundry etc.) pretty easily.  This is the exterior of the building (you're only seeing about half, the other half is blocked by water tanks and power generators) and the long hallway inside:

 

Here are some views of the interior.  I'd say my share of the room is approximately 14' by 8', plenty of room, and the ceilings are about 14' high, so it really seems spacious.  We have a couple wall lockers (not pictured) that divide the room in half, but as I mentioned previously, this roommate is almost never around.
 

Ahh, no more annoying roommate...and I didn't even have to use my gun to get rid of him!  Oh, and you can see the cute little stereo I bought brand new for $70.  My iPod plugs right in.

 
 
They're supposed to be announcing the prelimnary results of the election today.  It's been neck and neck between a couple of coalitions.  The current PM is leading one of them, but was surprised at the competition, he was expecting to have a huge lead.  The Sunnis are back.  The next few months will be interesting as negotiations take place to "form a government" out of those elected to Parliament.  It's way different than the US, but I think it is effective.

More to follow. 

Roommates!

When I got back from Australia, I was welcomed to my trailer by a new roommate.  Easily the most annoying person I've ever lived with in my life.  He talked too loud.  He came in late and didn't know how to be quiet.  He was a mouth-breather.  When he slept, he didn't just have "restless leg" syndrome, he had "restless body" syndrome.  I don't know how he slept at all as he tossed and turned and twitched and flopped around.  He talked in his sleep.  He had explosive gas problems in his sleep.  But the best part was he'd wake up around 3am every morning and eat packages of dry cereal in bed.  Did I say eat dry cereal?  I meant EAT (MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH) DRY (MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH) CEREAL!  He sounded like a starving horse eating corn nuts.

Lucky for me one of the people who worked with me just left for home, and I moved into his room.  It's not a trailer but in a building that was originally used as dormitory rooms by Iraqi soldiers, before the invasion that is.  It's a pretty nice place, nice high ceilings, bathroom at the end of the hall.  And the best part is my roommate spends a lot of time elsewhere, so I have the place to myself. 

The only down side is there's not an internet connection in my room.  I'm at the Rec center trying to use their wireless and having a hell of a time getting some pictures of the new place uploaded.  I'll try again another day.

Australia - Phillip Island

The main event of the trip to Australia was attending the opening round of World Superbike racing at Phillip Island.  I'd heard many times that the race circuit there is the most beautiful in the world, and I have to admit it's the best I've ever seen in person (but I'd like to visit all the tracks in Italy, Portugal and Spain just to make sure).

The track itself is beautiful, flowing up and down hills with many long sweeping turns, and the coastline is absolutely gorgeous.  Imagine Carmel, California, but instead of Pebble Beach golf course, someone built a racetrack there.  Those Australians are geniuses!!

 

The racing was fantastic.  In addition to the superbikes, the Australians raced some historic motorcycles that for an old man were gorgeous to look at.

In addition to the racing, Phillip Island is also famous for the "Penguin Parade".  The worlds smallest breed of penguin (approx one foot high) lives along the coast, and nests at one particular beach.  They feed all day and then at dark all swim ashore and waddle up to their nests in the sand dunes a couple hundred feet from the beach.  It is an amazing site to see, and they waddled right by us without even noticing.  Over 1000 penguins swim ashore each night.  Here's a pic of what the little fellows look like...they are actually blue, not black; and also the beach where they came ashore about 45 mins before the parade began. 

 

So that's about it regarding the vacation.  In addition to the interesting animals and scenery, I also discovered I enjoy Aboriginal artwork.  I hope you all get a chance to go somewhere fun soon. 

Australia - The Animals

One of the "perks" of coming to Iraq for a year is two weeks off and an all expenses paid trip to anywhere in the world.  Of course most people go home to see family...but with the kids being older and busy with school and work and missions, I decided to go the selfish route and head to Australia, where I visited with friends and friends of friends and made new friends.  Australia is beautiful and the people are very friendly and laid back.  If you haven't been there, I highly recommend it.  I'd like to go back there someday to live for a while and really explore.  As it was I spent some time in the cities of Brisbane and Melbourne...and the smaller towns of Cairns, Cooktown, Mount Isa and on Phillip Island.  The climate and landscape are quite diverse, from tropical rain forests on the Northeast coast, to arid California-like coastline in the South.

Of course what is really amazing is the different animals you see.  From cute kangaroos and cuddly koalas (yes these are real animals in the pics):

to noisy kookaburas and SCARY 15-foot long crocodiles:

 

As well as handsome dingos and goofy jaberoos:

Australia really is an amazing place, plus I ate some of the best Indian food I've ever had.  I think I only thought of Iraq maybe twice the whole trip...and it's a little tough getting back in the groove of work.

Election Day

Sorry I've been a bit delinquent in posting.  Nothing at all in February is pathetic.  Things were a bit hectic, and then I went on leave to Australia and just returned yesterday.  Yes, I had a blast!  More on that trip in a separate post. 

Tomorrow is Election Day in Iraq.  Nationwide Parliamentary elections to be exact.  This will be the first entirely Iraqi run election since the invasion in 2003 and is also a pretty major milestone toward the US withdrawal.  We're expecting pretty high participation and likely a small amount of violence. 

After the election there will be a lot of maneuvering between the political parties and those elected to Parliament (325 seats) to decide on a Prime Minister and form a government.  It's expected to take several months, so perhaps by the time I leave here at the end of June we'll have an idea on who will be the next Prime Minister.  Since no one party will have a majority, several parties will need to reach consensus to select the PM, which is good for Iraq...there needs to be more compromise and consensus...and trends have been pretty positive in the months leading up to election that groups are more willing to compromise.  Iraq has a lot of potential if the groups can learn to get along, oil exports are expected to triple over the next five years.  So there should be plenty of wealth to go around as long as one particular group doesn't get too selfish or greedy.

Although we're not officially supposed to have an opinion on who the next PM will be, I think it will be best if the current PM does not return.  He's been showing some pretty serious tendencies of late to bend the rules in an effort to consolidate his power...and I think another four years would entrench him to the point he wouldn't leave.  Better to get a new face from a new party and shake things up a bit.

Starting in mid January I've been in the unique position to be able to meet with the two chiefs of the security team for Vice President Hashimi, who is a leading Sunni politician.  I share information with them about security threats around the country and they've been giving me a first hand look at politics within Iraq, and more specifically the Sunni/Shia divide within the country.  I meet with them once a week and we talk things over for an hour or two over sweet tea and lunch.  They've hosted me a few times and I took them to the Embassy for lunch once.  I've really enjoyed the interaction.

It will definitely take time for the sectarian divide to be bridged completely, but as I mentioned earlier, there have been some pretty positive signs.  But one or two incidents or the wrong leaders coming into power could definitely move things backward.  I think enough politicians have the violence of 2005-2008 fresh in their minds though and will continue to work across the sectarian divide to be more inclusive...but I freely admit I'm an optimist.

It's been fun to see the events unfold firsthand, but I'm amazed sometimes at the seemingly glacial pace things move.  The elections were intially supposed to be held on 16 January...tomorrow is 7 March...you get the idea.  And what seems to be a crisis today fades into obscurity after a week or two.  Overall though, there's been a great deal of progress since I arrived on 1 July.  It's the opposite of my first trip here (Jul 04 to Mar 05) when things were going pretty steadily downhill...so for me it's good to see the progress. 

Hopefully Election Day tomorrow will be another step in that direction.